James

Part of what makes a good manager is being the right person at the right time. Pardew fits that bill in my opinion, as did Hughton, Roeder the caretaker, and Bobby Robson.

Players to play ahead of Alan Smith in central midfield: Cabaye Tiote Guthrie Gosling Abeid Ben Arfa Marveaux Vuckic Coloccini Players not to play ahead of Alan Smith: James Perch

A moderate button has appeared up top. Doesn't lead anywhere though.

I think people are just concerned about his history of taking off and going to another country when the opportunity arises. If this keeps happening there would be a concern that he is not settling. I would like to know what Ben Arfa's accomodation arrangements are. Hopefully Stainrod is doing his best to settle him.

Is ok him going to Tunisia but we have to manage the situation and make sure that whatever the circumstances we are getting the best from him on the pitch.

not quite the story I was told by a friend of Krul's that there were bids from Feyenoord and Chelsea, and Kinnear tried to sell him, but Dennis Wise got in touch with Krul and told him there were bids but that he wasn't going to allow them as he thought Krul would be our future number one.

Our problem was we had no resilience on the bench and too many of our players were knackered. Hindsight would have said Guthrie for Ba, but the other two subs were then spot on after that, it was just we were running on empty.

Everyone was knackered though which was the big problem.

Loads of times we seem to have just found ourselves in large amounts of space in forward positions. Not sure if it is bad defending or good passing, but I was of the opinion that we haven't passed as well as in recent games (though still well)

Really good goal, it was like he was just watching a load of players falling over, and he thought fuck it, I'll just score.

We were better against Blackburn and Villa to be honest. We seem to be missing a lot of balls in the air, but I reckon Wolves are kicking it high in to the sun. Steven Taylor definitely should have conceded a penalty, diving in for no reason then pointing outside the area half a second later. He's reverted to Rambo mode to be honest, diving in to headers that Colo was already going for and giving away free kicks. Even so, we are leading by two goals, several players have done well, Krul and Tiote being the pick of the bunch.

Congratulations to Alan Pardew. He has assembled a team with pace, skill, passing, which is therefore good in FIFA.

I think Carr misunderstood when Llambias said go find me some M&M's.

This is only for a full internal review however. After this, further action could be forthcoming.

Would love to see Tevez try and tell someone like Souness that he's refusing to come on. For all his bravado, wasn't it leaked that Souness was overawed by the swathes of fearless 20-somethings who wouldn't automatically show him respect and who he couldn't control? Better pundit than manager.

Mancini has two excellent, motivated, high performing strikers up front and his team are flying high in the league. Why would it be bad for Mancini? As far as I am concerned, Tevez has taken the piss completely with zero reason. Man City should sack him, stop paying his wages, but hold on to his registration so he can't play for anyone.

Same team, unless Santon is fit on the basis that Ben Arfa did look off the pace against Blackburn even though the quality was there to see.

I would say he does go invisible at times especially in first half, but he will reappear with aplomb. I have seen more good passes by Newcastle players than the last five years put together and this is down to him.

A stand out performance.

Sometimes he was sublime but at the same time he wasted possession too easily by trying to beat his man but just running in to him. Something match fitness will hopefully fix.

Update your sig.

Like how the first goalscoring game for Best and Ba were hattricks

A lot of these shots were blocked by defenders, or speculative drives, we haven't necessary created clear cut chances apart from the goal.

Cabaye has run 3,485m

I'd bring on Marveaux or Ben Arfa because Jonas and Taylor are losing the ball too much switching on to their right foots.